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I take for granted sometimes the social media knowledge I’ve acquired over the years. I was talking to someone the other day who has a Facebook personal profile and a business page, but didn’t realize that you could create events in Facebook, invite people, remind people and promote on multiple pages and profiles. She’d even been sent invitations to events and still hadn’t made the connection.

I forget that what is second nature to me now is still a new opportunity to another. And there’s nothing I love more than helping others discover new opportunities, new ways to spread their message and build their businesses using social media.

So, with that in mind, I’d like to show you not only how to create an Event in Facebook in this post, but I’ll share what qualifies as an event, when to create them, as well as where to promote them in an upcoming post.

How to Create an Event in Facebook:

There are a couple ways to start:

1. Go to http://www.facebook.com/events and click the Create an Event button

2. Go to your Facebook business page and click on Events in the left-hand menu under your picture.

If you click on Events from within your business page that makes your business the host of that event.

For purposes of this tutorial, I’ll use this example — of creating an event from within your business page.

So, you’ve clicked on Events under your profile banner. You will see this next if you have not created an event recently…or ever:

Click on “Create an Event.”

You will be taken here:

The rest of the steps should be fairly self-explanatory. Set your date, time, end time if there is one, Name of event, Location of event, Description of Event.

Add a nice photo, logo or other image to make your event look legit and enticing.

When you click on Select Guests: the pop-up window let’s you pick friends from your Personal Profile to invite, which is nice, but odd considering you’re creating it from your business page. Never fear, there is a way to let fans of your business page know. Hold tight.

You’ll see that you can decide whether or not to let the attendees be visible on the event page (recommended) and you can decide whether or not to let attendees comment on the event page (also recommended — you want that to post on their walls!).

Click “Create Event” button when you’re satisfied. You can always invite more people and edit the event after you have created it, but I highly recommend having your ducks in a row in terms of time, date, location and info before pulling the trigger. You don’t want to look unprofessional or unprepared.

After the event is created it will look something like this:

You can see that in the “Created By” section it links to my Social Deviants page, which is what you want so that the opportunity of increasing Likes to your page goes up.

Again, you can Select Guests to Invite After event creation by clicking the button beneath the event photo.

You’ll notice that there is an area where people can comment on the event because I left the settings so that non-admin folks could do so. This spreads the wealth.

[SIDE NOTE: If you have an an ongoing Event — say a weekly free call series like mine or a photography group that meets every month or something. There’s some good news. If someone has already said they are attending, whenever you edit any of the content it will send them a notification in the upper left of the Facebook header under the globe]:

Back to the newly created event. Creating it from your business page gives you the opportunity to tell your fans about it:

Click the Button in the upper right that says “Update fans of (your page here).

You’ll be taken here:

I like that Facebook gives you the opportunity to craft a custom message and subject line to your fans.

You also get the opportunity to Target the update, which you might want to consider if it’s a ladies-only event or a location-based event that would be difficult for your fans in Japan to visit:

After you have clicked “Send,” your fans should get a message notification from Facebook.

And that is the How.

In an upcoming post, I’ll share the rest of the Facebook Events story — When should you create an event, Where should you promote it and What qualifies as an Event. Stay Tuned.

Most Facebook users out there are getting hip to the fact that they need a Welcome tab on their Facebook page. I’m honestly not even sure what the current stats are, but last I heard (2009) adding a Welcome tab to your page increased page “Likes” by 47%.

I would think that percentage would even be higher now with the addition of “reveal” Welcome tabs that tease the would-be Liker with an offering “behind the click.” For instance, a reveal teaser tab would show an ebook hidden behind the screen, so to speak, that a person could download for free after clicking the “Like” button.

So, then what are your options for adding a Welcome tab? You can add Welcome tab a few different ways depending on what you want, what your goal is and what your budget is.

The Free Welcome Tab:

If you want just a flat image with text/pictures on it, then add the PageLever app. It’s free and you can just upload a graphic. If you know basic HTML, add the Static HTML app and add your code. Free could be a relative term here of course if you’re paying someone to graphically design your image.

The Premium Welcome Tab:

Premium Welcome tabs are usually installed for you by a third-party, though there are still plenty of third-party apps where you do the heavy lifting (from companies like Involver, Social AppsHQ or TabSite). The advantage to the premium Welcome tab, whether you hire a web team/VA or one of these third-parties, is that you can video and email opt-in to the tab among other bells and whistles, which doubles as “Like”-builder and list-builder all in one fancy schmancy welcome mat.

Regardless of which route you take, remember to tell people why they should Like your page at all. Stick to the benefits of what your page and status updates will add to their lives and news feeds. Features like access to sweepstakes are all well and good, and should be mentioned, but those are just features. People want their lives made better, so you need to tell them how that will happen, if only just a little bit, because they Liked your page.

Do you have a Welcome tab on your Facbeook page? Here’s your shot to show us whatcha got. Share you magic in the comments.